TWO
I LOVE TO WATCH YOUR SHOW, AND WILL ALWAYS COME back for more. I’ll be Coming For about the tenth time to see You At Your Next Concert. —a Die-Hard fan
Javul Charn stared at the holographic message that hovered in the air before her face. On the surface it looked just like all the other fan mail she’d gotten in this packet, but her gut told her it wasn’t fan mail at all. It was a warning.
Reading it over for the second time, she used the tip of her finger to select the oddly capitalized words from the text and drag them to a separate line, wondering how it had gotten past Kendara Farlion, her road manager and professional worrywart. Dara was used to seeing quirky holomail, but quirkiness usually had a pattern to it.
This wasn’t a pattern.
Javul looked at the finished sentences hovering before her eyes: Watch Your Back. Coming For You At Your Next Concert. Die-Hard.
Was that last just a throwaway line or something more? A clue, perhaps?
At your next concert, the message said, but that didn’t guarantee that something wouldn’t happen before then. Her next concert was a little over a week away on Rodia, and would kick off a tour that would take them all the way to the Core Worlds, ending on Alderaan.
Panic fluttered beneath Javul’s breastbone and she felt suddenly, unutterably alone. Beyond the door of the luxurious cabin on her equally luxurious private yacht, the Nova’s Heart—named after her first holo-album to sell ten billion copies—her entourage and crew went about the hundreds of daily tasks that were integral to producing and maintaining her seemingly endless cycles of live concerts, holocasts, personal appearances, and travel. And yet—here, in her private sanctum, no less—someone had managed to breach the battlements of her life.
A slender arm the color of burnished bronze thrust over her shoulder, its index finger pointing at the curt warning still hanging in the air. “Chaos Hell, JC! What the blazes is that?”
Javul only just kept herself from falling out of her chair onto the carpeted deck. “Frag it, Dara! Can’t you make some noise when you enter a room? Can’t you ping?” She killed the message and swung around, catching the crestfallen expression on the other woman’s face.
“Since when do I have to ping to come into your office? And—hey—language? You talk like that in front of a holocam, and your name will be mud in households from here to the Rim.”
Javul gestured helplessly. “I’m sorry, but you scared the fr—” She swallowed. “You scared me.”
“I’m not surprised. Who sent that?”
“Sent what?” Javul said innocently.
“Too late. I saw it. Watch your back? What’s up with that? I didn’t see that in your mail.”
“It was part of a longer communication. There were capitalized words that spelled out this—message.”
“Warning,” Dara said.
Javul worried her lower lip with her teeth, reluctant to admit that she’d come to the same conclusion. “I don’t know that warning is—”
“Oh, it is. Trust me on this one, JC.” Kendara’s dark violet eyes were huge. “You have a stalker. What remains to be seen is how serious he, she, or it is.”
A stalker. There—the word had been spoken, and made real. Okay. Deeeep breath.
“Yeah. Looks like it,” she said. “This … this isn’t the first one of these I’ve gotten. There was one in the batch of holomail after the previous concert, too. Remember the black fire lilies?”
“Do I? Yeah, I should say I do. You mean, that wasn’t a compliment?”
Javul shook her head, remembering the rain of the gleaming black, pungently fragrant blooms that had fallen all around her and her entourage as they’d ascended the landing ramp of her yacht after an appearance on Imperial Center. “I think that was a warning, too. He wanted me to know the sort of thing he could arrange.”
“He?”
“I’m assuming—the messages are anonymous.”
“I see. Then all that stuff about cultural relativity and how the black lilies were especially prized by the Elom as—”
“I made it up. I didn’t want you guys to … you know.”
Kendara put her hands on her hips and glared down at Javul, one bright orange curl falling over her forehead. “Yeah, I know. You didn’t want us to know your life was in danger. Which is kinda—what’s the word I’m searching for? Oh, yeah—stupid. Of course, I’m just your road manager, the head of your entourage. What good’s an entourage if you won’t let us take care of you?
“I can’t believe you’d leave me out of the loop on something like this. I’m not just your road manager. I’m your best friend. I’m the one who’s been pulling you out of scrapes since we were teenagers. Do I have to remind you of the lengths to which obsessed individuals will go? Do you remember any of our so-called adventures on Tatooine? That Zabrak spacer who thought you’d make the perfect little wifey. That guy who wanted to buy out Chalmun and set you up as the house chanteuse? The stormtroopers who—”
Javul raised her hands against the volley of words. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right. I should have said something before. But … well, at first I was thinking it was just an overzealous fanboy and then … I don’t know. I figured if the guy was on Coruscant—I mean, Imperial Center—and we were leaving …”
“Yeah, well, apparently he’s taking his show on the road, too.”
The truth of that statement made Javul’s throat tighten. She clasped her hands together in her lap, flexing her fingers to make the rainbow stones inlaid into each nail glitter and flash. “So now you know. What do you think we should do?”
Kendara tilted her head to one side in thought. Then she said, “Two things. One, I’d split us into two travel parties. Second, I’d hire bodyguards.”
“Okay on the splitting up—but bodyguards?”
“Yeah. Steely-eyed, laser-toting, massively intimidating bodyguards.”
Javul shook her head. “I don’t know, Dara. It’s already freakishly hard to keep a low profile in this business, and if we contract with a security company, we increase our footprint, our baggage … and the number of people who have to have oversight.”
“I’m not thinking of hiring from a security firm.”
“Then where am I supposed to come by these steely-eyed, laser-toting … characters?”
A smile curved Kendara Farlion’s lips and her teeth showed, white and even in her face. “I never thought I’d say this, but there are advantages to being from Mos Eisley. I know exactly where to look for that kind of character.”